


Shadow Play

by AdelaCathcart



Series: Violators [4]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust - Philip Pullman
Genre: Adultery, Aggressively Canon Compliant, Blasphemy, Daemon Touching, F/M, Foreshadowing, Mad Scientists, Mean People Suck (Each Other Off), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaCathcart/pseuds/AdelaCathcart
Summary: The door opens and Marisa is there, tousled hair and rosy cheeks, wearing her own shoes and Asriel’s gold Turkic dressing gown as if it were fashionable streetwear. The monkey launches himself away from Asriel’s body with enough force that his claws draw blood.“Why, what’s the matter? You all look as if you’d seen a ghost! I wanted something from my bag downstairs, that’s all. Oh, Thorold thought we might want tea, so I told him to bring some up.” She throws the monkey a look of icy condescension as she hangs up the robe, her bare skin as elegant as any dress. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she reproaches him. “See, you’ve frightened them.”If she ever thinks I need her, Asriel realizes, disturbed,she will look at me that way, too.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Series: Violators [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610350
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	Shadow Play

**Author's Note:**

> I have theories about how their affair contributed to the divergent paths their work eventually took, which are explored a little bit in this story. Careful readers will be aware that as usual, much of what Marisa says here is misleading, either deliberately or out of habit. The title is after the Joy Division song, surprising no one. Please see other notes in this series re Oliver Reed, Gee's golden langur, Depeche Mode, et al. Thank you to everyone who's left comments and encouragement for my fics, it really means the world to me to know that you enjoy them.

Their dæmons tussle on the floor as they make love, which is perhaps unusual but not at all surprising. It’s a pleasure to see his soul and hers acting out the half-playful battle of wills they wage to love each other, and something of a comfort knowing that while the woman might find a thousand ways to evade him, the monkey’s grotesque, dextrous fingers are no match for Stelmaria’s elegant, brutal claws. But the very first time Marisa comes in his mouth, while he’s lost himself in the heat and sweetness of her body and she gasps and trembles around him, the monkey gives the leopard’s ear a vicious wrench that makes Asriel wince in pain and surprise. Stelmaria swats at the attacker, and the blow is forceful enough to slam his little golden body hard into the oaken footboard. At the same moment Asriel feels his lover’s orgasm crash down on her in wave after inexorable wave. One of her fists holds him firmly by the hair. The other flies up to her lovely contorted face, and she screams into it, biting at her knuckles, teeth worrying the soft base of her thumb. It’s a long time before she lets go.

Presently her breathing slows and her grip on him goes slack, and Asriel presses one more soft kiss to her cunt before gently withdrawing his fingers from the holes they’re curled in and sitting back on his heels with a sigh. From his kneeling position at the side of the bed he can see the monkey still sprawled on the carpet by the footboard. “Is he all right?” he asks, more curious than concerned.

Marisa leans forward, legs still spread, to see her swooning dæmon for herself. “Yes,” she says, a sad smile tugging at the corners of her flushed lips. “In fact I’ve rarely seen him happier.” Asriel allows himself a brief swell of pride, which sours in a moment as the ruthless conqueror in his heart underlines that word “rarely.” When? With whom? It’s not enough, he thinks as he watches the monkey rise and begin to groom himself. He will have all of her or die trying. Oblivious, or faking it well, she rolls lazily onto her stomach, leaving a wet, diamond-shaped print on the edge of the bed.

Asriel stands and stretches, glancing at his pocket watch as he unbuttons his double-breasted waistcoat. Only twelve-twenty: two or three hours until she has to go. Enough time to thoroughly enjoy her, body and mind, and still attend to the paper on experimental theology which he’d planned to review before bed tonight. Her clothes are strewn haphazardly around his room; her chemise wadded by the cold fender, her moss-colored day dress hanging off the bedpost, stockings tangled in the counterpane. He collects them and lays them across an ottoman with his own.

It had taken all his powers of persuasion to get her into October House, and once she’d safely arrived he’d been overcome with eagerness to see his beloved for the first time fully naked, and in daylight. She came in an anonymous cab more or less when she’d said she would, entering through the carriage house and wearing a scarf and dark glasses like a widow. Thorold was at the door and Asriel trusts him in all things, but a housemaid he’s had once or twice in the past was straightening the parlor and might have noticed him waltzing his guest upstairs, and if she seems inclined to ask questions he’ll make sure the manservant reminds her of her place. He can be subtle and even evasive when it suits him, but caution isn’t really in his nature. Privilege has accustomed him to achieving his desires by open demand. Explanations and subterfuge are nothing but unnecessary detours on the ramrod path between will and execution.

Unbeknownst to him, every kiss he shares with Edward Coulter’s wife brings those days of entitlement nearer to their end.

He stretches out on the bed and tumbles her into his arms. She laughs as her hair falls in his face, and when she tosses her head back he kisses her upturned chin. She looks back down at him bright-eyed, her lips pursed as if suppressing a smile. With a fingertip she traces the whitish moisture on his unshaven upper lip, and not wanting to be fussed over he twists away from her hand, sucking his mustache clean before pulling her by the back of the neck into a hard kiss. She presses her body tightly to his, clasping the sides of his face to keep him close. Her breasts are two white fawns nestled on his bare chest, and her tongue in his mouth is like a little dove pleading. He wants her so urgently there is nothing more to think about. But when he grasps her hips to move her into position she pulls back, smiling, cool hands at rest on his shoulders.

At another time he might seize her wrists, roll her under him and take her as he likes, but at the moment he has the leisure to wait and see what she will do. First she tucks her hair behind her ears, chewing her lower lip in a sly pantomime of innocence. Next she takes his penis in her hand, and then devours it.

The pleasure hits him hard, the little demoniac mouth with which she has so often cursed him now blesses and envelops him entire. It’s like plunging into poison honey, exquisite, too intense. She tugs his scrotum with her nails, massages his prostate with one delicate knuckle, swallowing and swallowing like she’s drinking him. Two hours, he thinks distantly. No need to delay the inevitable when they have plenty of time for a long lazy fuck later, after they’ve taken the edge off. So he takes her head between his hands and spills himself roughly down her throat.

After the flood his pleasure ebbs like a tide flowing back to its source, and he looks up at her gleaming lips and imagines his own bright seed floating in her chest like the sun behind a cloud. Some part of his soul seems have detached from his body and made its home in hers, and he feels a surge of emotion, profound sweetness mixed with dread, pricking in his throat. A hand is tenderly stroking his hair, smoothing it away from his forehead, but he realizes with a start that both her hands are in her lap.

It’s the monkey, of course.

Asriel has never been so close to one before. It’s not a form Stelmaria ever took during their childhood. Now he can see the small horny hands aren’t grotesque at all but nimble, their movements enchantingly minute and precise, each finger tipped with a perfect little black nail. The deep brown eyes brim with sad wisdom. The monkey is as beautiful as the woman herself. In spite of the taboo, Asriel extends a single finger towards him. With bemused affection written on his expressive features, the monkey accepts it, creeping nearer so Asriel can stroke his radiant head. As he does so, he looks for Marisa’s reaction and has another shock, worse than the first. She isn’t even in the room.

“Where is she?” he demands, snatching his hand back.

The monkey looks shamefaced, and hesitates before he responds. “In the hall,” he admits softly, his voice high and ragged. “At the stair… on the landing… ah…”

He’s trembling now, his tiny fingers twisting in the sheet. Stelmaria leaps lightly to the bed beside them, purring, full of empathy for the little dæmon’s distress. “Why don’t you go to her?” she asks, curling her thick tail around him.

The monkey’s only answer is a moan, and he shakes his head with his eyes shut tight. And then slowly, as if great need is forcing him to master his revulsion, he creeps to Asriel’s shoulder, huddling in the warm crook of his neck, violently shivering, clinging to his hair. Asriel and Stelmaria exchange a look of alarm.

Then the door opens and Marisa is there, tousled hair and rosy cheeks, wearing her own shoes and Asriel’s gold Turkic dressing gown as if it were fashionable streetwear. The monkey launches himself away from Asriel’s body with enough force that his claws draw blood.

“Why, what’s the matter? You all look as if you’d seen a ghost! I wanted something from my bag downstairs, that’s all. Oh, Thorold thought we might want tea, so I told him to bring some up.” She throws the monkey a look of icy condescension as she hangs up the robe, her bare skin as elegant as any dress. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she reproaches him. “See, you’ve frightened them.”

 _If she ever thinks I need her_ , Asriel realizes, disturbed, _she will look at me that way, too._

“Very amusing, Marisa,” he says sternly to head her off.

“Hm?”

“That separation.”

“Ah. Thank you, I’m glad you think so. We learned to do it when I was just a girl,” she replies, perching at the foot of the bed and crossing her legs. She scrutinizes his face for a moment and then lays back, studying the paneled ceiling. The monkey squats by her head, combing her hair out around her like a halo.

“You enjoy pain.” It’s not a question.

She squints up at him one-eyed. “We don’t mind it, if that’s what you mean.”

“How perverse,” he says with a short laugh, inverting his position on the bed to kiss her naked shoulder, which she offers to him by inclining her head away. “I never imagined a woman could be so unspeakably lovely to look at and yet so utterly depraved within.”

Her voice is bored but he can smell the heat coming off her. “Yes, well, if you ever figure out what exactly I’m like within, do let me know. I’m sure your insight will be most illuminating.”

“I already know what you’re like inside,” he purrs, undaunted, reaching between her legs and giving her the barest squeeze, just enough to wet his fingertips. “Sweet as heaven, and infinitely more interesting.”

He licks his fingers to the sound of her musical laugh. Her nose wrinkles and it’s so endearingly graceless that it can only be genuine. “Blasphemer,” she mutters half-ruefully. “I should never have taken you to that church.”

“Perhaps not, but I’m glad you did.” He kisses her, licking her teeth, and from her supine position she can’t stop him, but she stiffens a little and he lets go because there’s something more she wants to say.

“Asriel, do you remember what you said to me, oh, weeks ago, in the closet at Lord Anselmo’s?”

“Vividly, I think. Why?”

“You said we were in love. You were absolutely certain.”

“Yes.”

“But how did you know?”

“I just knew. There’s no need to be sentimental…”

“Please don’t flatter yourself, Asriel. If I’d wanted a poet I would have one. Listen to me. Something changed, in the air or _something_ , and then we loved each other. You felt it, I could see. Not just a feeling, not sentiment, not something spiritual or intangible. Something measurable and real.”

“'Not spiritual but real.' Who’s blaspheming now?”

“Be serious. You felt it in your body, didn’t you?” She drives her fist into his sternum, not hard, but just for emphasis.

“Yes.”

“And the pain of separation is like that. Not only emotional, but in the body as well.” He's on his stomach, propped up by his forearms, saying nothing, just letting her follow her thought. Up at the headboard, near his feet, impassive Stelmaria rests her head on crossed paws, and tentatively the monkey leans his chin against her shoulder. “And if it’s physical, then it’s possible to manipulate it. To redirect it, or even to destroy it.”

“There was some research to that effect being done, I think, not long ago in Paris. But it had to do with Rusokov particles, connecting them to Dust, and it was suppressed before I had the chance to see the results.”

“I read the paper. A man called Bonneville.”

“How? Every copy was destroyed.”

“He kept the manuscript in his private library, in a hollowed-out volume of the _Œdipus Ægyptiacus._ ”

Asriel is astonished. “You know him.”

“Only in passing.”

“They say he’s quite mad."

“I don’t doubt it. Anyway, Bonneville designed a method for monitoring the flow of the Rusakov particle field: he was measuring it, and he even proposed a formula by which these particles could be destroyed. But he considered the ramifications of his discovery only in terms of power, of energy, generating apocalyptic weapons and so forth, which is sadly typical of research done by male scientists, I find. He didn’t consider that if you could map the connection between these tangible particles and useless or painful emotions, you might do immeasurable good for all of humanity.”

“From what I hear, Bonneville isn’t one to concern himself with the good of humanity.”

“No. And since he was foolish enough to attract the attention of the Magisterium, anyone attempting to continue his research would be subject to intense scrutiny from the Consistorial Court. He was lucky not to end up in prison.”

”I thought he was in prison.”

”Well, he is, but not for that. At any rate he left a poisoned well behind him—no one would dream of pursuing the question of Dust now. The risk of making a heretical discovery is too great.”

“Unless you could somehow convince the Magisterium that such research would serve their own interests.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Two bright points of color are burning high on her cheeks. Her breathing has quickened, too, and her eyes are very wide. The look on her face could almost be fear, but then her gaze flicks to his and it’s so soft and helpless it looks like adoration. He’s not a humble man, but he’s shrewd enough to be skeptical of that look.

“What is it?” he asks her, careful not to sound too solicitous.

“I rarely have the opportunity to talk like this with anyone,” she admits.

He holds her face in his hand for a moment before stroking gently down her neck, tracing her body's sinuous topography all the way to her knee, which is still bent off the edge of the bed, her toes grazing the carpet. He follows the other knee back up to her face again. She’s watching him, very still and wide-eyed, in the grip of some profound emotion. “My love,” he murmurs, gloating over the sight of this dreamed-of woman, who loves him, who wants him, in his own bed in his own house, like a captured unicorn. How often can he be with her like this? He’s already calculating how to arrange it. “You should talk with me whenever you like.”

Marisa sits up and climbs into his lap. Her lips brush his as she replies, “I don’t feel like talking anymore.” She kisses him passionately, toppling him onto his back, and her body consumes him like a tidal wave. He soon forgets what it was they had talked about. She, of course, does not. 

They have at least an hour left before she has to go, and in fact they spend that time in each other’s arms and talking very little, except for a short intermission when Thorold brings them their tea.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. put a(/your?) rapist in prison  
> 2\. steal his research  
> 3\. ???  
> 4\. ~~benefit humanity~~ ~~invent psychiatry~~ ~~child murder~~ profit
> 
> The dress she isn't wearing: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/157615


End file.
